Thanks a bunch AlexElder for allowing me to post your stunning article! Iâ€™m so grateful for your help 🙂

Yes yes yes you smart Canucks out there! TD Bank are once again giving out free iPod Nanos and iPod Shuffles starting on the 29th May, 2006. Read AlexElder’s awesome guideÂ below for all the details.

” Hello everyone,

AlexElder here. TD Canada Trust will be having an Ipod Promotion again this summer. I am not able to provide all details, but it is VERY similar to last years promotion.Â Â Â Â Â

Just to clarify, the promotion will be for a shuffle and there IS a way to upgrade to a NANO.

More later on specific details and on Sizes of Ipods etc…

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Ok everyone, I will now hopefully officially answer everyones questions or concerns. Promo Starts May 29th – July?(i will fill this in tomorrow)
You have to be 19(in ontario, not sure if its different in other provinces)
It is open for existing TD Canada Trust Clients. Head to the bottom of the post to find out how.

Call ahead and make an appointment if you can to avoid wait times.

Expect to spend about 10-20 minutes in the TDCT bank if you are an existing TD Client.
Expect to spend about 20-30 minutes in the TDCT bank if you are not an existing TD Client.
Add on an extra 15-20 minutes if you dont have enough credit to warrant a preapproval.

This is the promotion as it stands:
To obtain an Ipod Shuffle

1)Transfer over a bank account from another institution using the EasySwitch program offered by TD Canada Trust.
2)Set up(or have already in place) One of the following:

1 Direct Deposit. Any external deposit to the account which is electronically credited to a customer’s account on a weekly, bi-monthly or on a monthly basis (quarterly or annual credits do not count as regular deposits)Now in regards to the Direct Deposit and their restrictions
Payroll deposits can be transferred over by the easyswitch program, but can sometimes be faster if you transfer it over yourself.Â Â Â Â Â Â Â

Government Direct deposits CAN NOT be transferred over due to privacy regulations. Monthly Gov credits do qualify, so Child tax benefit, CPP, OAS should be fine.
From what we learned last year, GST credits ended up working as direct deposits for a lot of people, but that could have been a glitch in the system. That may or may not have been ironed out this time.
Short term direct deposits like WSIB or EI should work as well as long as they don’t end before you get your Ipod.

2 Pre-Authorized Debits(PAD’s) This includes automatic bill payments registered with outside companies as well as TD Mortgage, Loan, VISA or LOC PADs. Pre-authorized transfers or PTS do not qualify. This means setting up an automatic transfer from a chq to sav account every month does NOT work

To obtain an Ipod NANO

You must do part 1 and either part 2a or 2b from the above Ipod shuffle deal.

You must also be approved for a TD Travel or Elite Visa. They have to be Brand New Visa’s. If you already have a Gold Visa, you can try to apply for another one. Both are minimum $5000. The Travel Visa has a $120 annual fee and the Elite have a $99 annual fee. If you want more info on the 2 Visa cards head over here.

It says that you have to have a minimum annual income but that is usually never taken into account. A lot of credit products say that, but it all depends on your credit expenses vs your income + your credit score which is actually weighed a lot more heavily.

The annual fees see steep but there are ways around them. More on that later.
Once you step into a TD and get everything set up, you can ask the Financial Service Rep(FSR) or Financial Advisor(FA) who is helping you to check if you are pre-approved for a GOLD visa for the program. If you are not pre-approved, then you have to do a full application which takes about 10-20 minutes and gets approved or declined within 2 days.

Now here are a few VERY important things to remember:

DO NOT CLOSE your account from the other bank by yourself. It HAS to be closed by the easyswitch process.

Bring your other bank account number to TD when you start the easyswitch process

Your PAD’s or Direct Deposits can be existing or brand new so if you still have your account from the last ipod promo all you have to do is transfer over an account again(for the shuffle) and get the visa(for the nano)

You can be a new or existing TD Canada Trust Client

All fees charged due to the switch are paid by TD Canada Trust, so dont worry about the early close fees for those of you heading to PC to open up a new account.

A phone appointment will be set up for you to do the actual switch from the other bank to TD. You get to choose the time and date, but it has to be at least 2 business days from when you go into TD and there are 2 hour time windows you have to be available for the call.

When they call you will have to have your account info for both accounts handy. If you are getting the easyswitch people to transfer over your PAD or direct deposits, then you need to have those numbers on hand as well.

It takes 4-6 weeks for the ipod to arrive, but if everything is the same as last year then it should arrive a lot quicker.

Once your easyswitch call is placed, your other bank is notified and you have a Direct Deposit or 2 PAD’s lodged, your account will be flagged and your Ipod will be on its way.

What about the fees from the Gold Visa cards???

Here is the “loophole” around paying such a high amount.

Open or change(if you have a preferred account read below) your account into the Select Service account. It has a fee of $24.95 but it waives the annual fees on the Gold Visa Cards regardless of the balance you carry in it. Make sure you mention that to your FSR or FA. They need to inform Visa to waive the fee as per your account plan.

If you have $5000 or more you donâ€™t have to worry about the $24.95 monthly fee. You must carry a balance of $5000 or more for the entire month.

Once you have received your ipod

Downgrade your account to a lower charging account or close it, So preferably go into a TD in the beginning of a month to lower the chances of it overlapping 2 Month charge periods

Change your visa to a GOLD Select Visa or any other non annual fee Visa card or just close it as well.***NEW***There is an early closing fee in the range of 20-40 if you close your account before 90 days. I will clarify the exact amount tomorrow. If you downgrade your account to wait out the 90 days, the lowest charging account is the value account. $3.95 a month, $1000 balance in it to waive the $3.95
***NEW***Make sure you do these last two steps in the correct order. If your Select Service account is not there to waive your Gold Travel/Elite fees, you may or may not get charged them.

Wear your Nano Proudly that you got for $0-$24.95(if done correctly and all goes well)

***NEW*** If you have a “Preferred” account plan, I would suggest you open a second account solely for this promotion. The preferred is one of the best accounts you can have and once it is changed from it, you can not change it back to a preferred.

So as you can see The Nano could be free, minus the interest you would gain on $5000 for 1-2 months. I calculated that to be roughly $14-$17 a month depending on the interest rate (3.5%-4% being generous with those rates) you could be getting on an open investment product.
Or you could get a Nano for as low as $24.95. It requires a little work, but if your credit is good and don’t mind the work, I Still consider this a HOT deal. Even if I didnâ€™t work there. Id rather go through all of this to get a nano!

If you have any more questions or concerns please post or PM me. The thread is already getting very large so it might be best to PM me.

Good luck everyone!

***NEW***Clarification on how to get the Nano TOTALLY “Free”. Not taking into account the interest that could be earned over a 90 day period which can greatly differ depending on how fast you get your ipod. You could be loosing less than $20 in interest.

-Get your TD Gold Travel/Elite fee waived by opening/upgrading to a Select Service chequing accoung
-Get your Select service fee waived by keeping $5000 in the account until you recieve your ipod.
-Downgrade your Visa or simply close it
-Downgrade to a value account
-Get your Value account fee waived by keeping $1000 in your account
-After 90 days you are free to close you account if you want to without any early closing fees.

***NEW***Here is a mini guide to getting a Nano for existing TDCT customers

Open an account at another bank

Head over to TDCT with the bank info from that account you just opened at another bank.

Do a BOAT of that account you just opened by easyswitch to your existing TDCT account.

Apply for a NEW TD Gold Elite/Travel Visa(you can still do this if you have an existing TD visa)

Upgrade your TDCT account to a Select Service account to waive the Visa annual Fees

You will now have to pay $24.95 for your chequing account unless you have $5000 in it to waive the monthly fee

make sure you meet one of the following criteria.

1 Direct Deposit(can be existing)

2 PAD’s(can be existing)

Once you get your ipod you can change everything back to normal if you want.

If you have an account that got you an Ipod shuffle from last years promotion and nothing has changed regarding the PAD’s or Direct deposits you can simple do a new Easy Switch and Apply for a new TD Gold Elite/Travel Visa. You will still have to up grade your account if you want to avoid the Visa Fees.”

Register today for this exciting one day event where joyful rewards await:
– Spend $50 or more* and receive 20x the Shoppers Optimum Pointsâ„¢

Spread the joy and collect up to 100,000 Shoppers Optimum Bonus Points!
– Get your friends to register and earn 1000 Bonus Points for each friend that shops and spends $50 or more on the day of the event.
– Receive an extra 1000 Bonus Points for each friend they refer (and so on) who registers and spends $50 or more on the day of the event.
– After the June 1st 20x event, we will email you an exclusive redemption event certificate so you can redeem 40,000 points for $100 off your purchase on June 10th or 11th . That’s worth an extra $25 in free products.

What do people usually buy on a SDM 20x events?
iPod is the hottest product to buy on a 20X event. Here is how it works:

Regularly, you collect 10 Shoppers Optimum Points for every $1 you spend at Shoppers Drug Mart. On a 20x day you get 20 times the points i.e. 20Ã—10 = 200 Shoppers Optimum Points for every $1 you spend

Unlike many contests, everyone wins in this Dominos Pizza contest 🙂
You will win an free order of Cheesy Bread along with another free item and if youâ€™re really lucky you could win free pizza for life!

This is just unbelievable! Skype, my favourite voice telephony program is now offering free calls within the Canada and US to all phones until the end of the year! Skypeâ€™s voice is crystal clear and Skypeâ€™s interface is so clean and friendly. Now with their free computer to phone calls they unbeatable.

Get a free fundraising kit! Thatâ€™s a nice freebie if youâ€™re actually planning on raising funds :-)Â If youâ€™re not planning on fund raising donâ€™t order this freebie and ruin it for children who are genuinely interested in it.

Iâ€™m not sure if Enfagrow still send out free stuff (they used to send out awesome freebies) but if you have a baby/infant itâ€™s definitely worth a try. In the worst case youâ€™ll get a coupon for a few bucks off some of their products. If I remember correctly, they also send out a cute booklet on how to take care of your child.

Get 1000 free Shoppers Drug Mart optimum points just by subscribing to their newsletter. 1000 points is equivalent to about $1.5 of products from Shoppers Drug Mart which isnâ€™t bad considering it takes about 1 minute to fill in their form. Go to this Shoppers page and click on the â€œgive us your email addressâ€¦â€ banner at the bottom of the page to get your points.

Iâ€™m not sure whether or not these free diabetes samples are shipped to Canada, but the form asks for country so I guess they will probably ship to Canada. If youâ€™re unfortunate to have diabetes maybe you can try out this freebie and hopefully youâ€™ll receive it.

Patakâ€™s Indian Food in Canada is a guide to cooking Indian food at home. Get a a free copy of their brochure and a coupon for 75 cents off any Patak’s products here. I donâ€™t like Indian food but for those of you who do, this might be good.